DPW - COMMITTEE

Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 9:30 AM

Clayton Barber, Chairperson

Chris Clark, Vice-Chairperson

Chairman Barber called this DPW Meeting to order at 9:30 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Ken Hughes, Mary Lamphear, Tracie McGill, Steve McNally, Clayton Menser, Timothy Pierce, Richard Preston, Cathleen Reusser, Matt Stanley, Davina Thurston, Ike Tyler, and Margaret Wood. Matthew Brassard, Chris Clark, Joe Pete Wilson and James O’Bryan were excused. Timothy Follos was absent.

Department Heads present: Doreen Abrahamsen, Judy Garrison, Roy Holzer, Michael Mascarenas and Jim Dougan.

Deputies present: Bill Tansey

Also present: Alice Halloran

BARBER: I will call the Department of Public Works to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. Mr. Dougan. Start with resolutions.

DOUGAN: That would be great the first two are a grant from US Fish and Wildlife. Overall, we got $200,000 from US Fish and Wildlife mostly to start some design work and bring a couple of projects all the way ready for design and future applications. So, the first one is a contract amendment with SRA Engineers. It’s in the amount not to exceed $31,200 that’s conceptual design, final design and construction drawings for the Fisk Road over McKenzie Brook culvert replacement located in the Town of Moriah. Again, those funds are US Fish and Wildlife 100% no match and this would further authorize the County Manager or the Chairman to sign that contract amendment.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH SRA ENGINEERS IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $31,200.00, TO PROVIDE PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING SERVICES INCLUDING CONCEPTUAL DESIGN, FINAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS FOR THE FISK ROAD OVER MCKENZIE BROOK CULVERT REPLACEMENT PROJECT LOCATED IN THE TOWN OF MORIAH WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM US FISH & WILDLIFE . Thurston, Pierce

BARBER: Questions, concerns? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: Number two is the same. It’s not to exceed $31,200 with SRA Engineers. This is one for Adrian’s Acres Road over Slide Brook culvert replacement that’s located in the Town of Keene again, US Fish and Wildlife 100% funds to get it basically shovel ready for future applications for funding. I think US Fish and Wildlife is going to want to fund that once they fund the initial design.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH SRA ENGINEERS IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $31,200.00, TO PROVIDE PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING SERVICES INCLUDING CONCEPTUAL DESIGN, FINAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS FOR THE ADRIAN’S ACRES ROAD OVER SLIDE BROOK REPLACEMENT PROJECT LOCATED IN THE TOWN OF KEENE WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM US FISH & WILDLIFE. Stanley, Menser

BARBER: Questions, concerns? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: Number three is authorizing the purchasing agent to award a purchase order in the amount of $234,562.52, for two new and unused walking floor trailers for solid waste. This is coming from budgeted funds as part of our solid waste plan that we put in for replacement of equipment. It was specifically in the budget, but each trailer was about $7,000 over what we originally budgeted we are hearing this because of steel costs so even though it was specifically budgeted it will bring those things that are over what we budgeted I will always bring those to the board for consideration. We did receive bids the second bid was about $10,000 more a trailer and the third bid was another $10,000 on top of that so it’s budgeted funds it’s within my overall equipment budget for solid waste which means this overage I will try and find as I deal with the other pieces of equipment I put out to bid.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO AWARD A PURCHASE ORDER TO SUMMIT TRAILERS, LLC IN THE AMOUNT OF $234,562.52, FOR TWO (2) NEW AND UNUSED ENCLOSED WALKING FLOOR TRAILERS IN THE SOLID WASTE DEPARTMENT WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS AND FURTHER AUTHORIZNG THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE SAID PURCHASE ORDER. Menser, Thurston

BARBER: Questions, concerns?

MASCARENAS: Jim, how much are these trailers since we purchased them last year? Just so everybody has kind of an idea what we’re dealing with.

DOUGAN: It’s about a $10,000 increase just from last year. We first created the solid waste equipment plan around 2018, and when I look back to when I first started purchasing those there’s 22 of those that are in service, so I pretty much have to buy one a year this year we happen to be buying two. Back in 2018, that cost was a little over $84,000, so in that eight, nine-year period of time they’ve gone up by 40%.

BARBER: So, do you get to scrap the old ones or do you put them out for sale?

DOUGAN: We’ve only pulled a few of them out of service. Back in 2018, almost everyone that we had was from 1999. Soon after the lawsuit with DEC, the county bought a lot of these and went from having a landfill to having a transfer station system and so they were, honestly, it’s still and uphill battle right Mr. Preston? I can’t always give him the number of trailers he needs up there in Lake Placid. I think Meg could say the same thing in Schroon. We are struggling all the time to keep up with it because so many of them are old. We’ve done some repairs on ones that were somewhat salvageable just on the walking floor hydraulic system the last few years. Some of you been here and may recall when I’m bringing things with quite often the vendor was Hail Trailers for around $20,000 to replace the walking floor system when we still feel the bones of the trailer is still good enough to get another five years out of. We will surplus them not too many people are willing to take them once we are done with them.

BARBER: Is there any other questions?

MASCARENAS: All of that really speaks to the lawsuit in 1999 continue to and will continue to add costs to taxpayers that are 36,000 people in Essex County while several other individuals including a million overnight visitors and several day trippers add to our solid waste issue and it’s really an unfair burden in place on the people in Essex County to have to foot the bill for these costs that aren’t borne by any other system in New York State other than Hamilton County who is also in the same boat we are.

REUSSER: I’m not on this committee but just to point out, why they don’t pay us? DEC?

MASCARENAS: Mr. McNally, would you like to answer that, or would you like me to speak on your behalf?

MCNALLY: You can go ahead.

MASCARENAS: The short of it no, we still haven’t been paid the subsidy. I would argue that that subsidy is far from what we should be getting $300,000 in 1999, isn’t what $300,000 is today. We are at this point owed $1.2 million. We have put in; our solid waste management plan has been submitted back in December I believe Jim? And we haven’t received an update from DEC on that. The deal kind of was once we have approval of a plan that we would then have payment release. That subsidy was somewhat weaponized for lack of a better term in terms of what the initial intent of what that subsidy was really for and it was really for recognizing that the cost for solid waste was going to be substantially higher for our people and they have kind of lost track of history of why that exists to begin with so we’re working on it and we’re working on a new negotiation, we’re working recouping our money but to date no, we still have approximately $2 million in receivables from the state.

MCNALLY: Yeah, I can add to that. There’s two counties, Hamilton and Essex County, and we are completely inside the Adirondack Park. Twenty-five, twenty-six years ago in 1999 we at the time agreed to pay us $300,000 if we closed our landfills this was a twenty-year contract I believe so after the twenty years is up we every year applied to get money from the DEC which they put in the budget every year and they agree to do this but they never pay us so it’s delayed, delayed, delayed with the state so now they come up with this idea, we need a plan. $95,000 which they have not responded to our plan, so we have a meeting on the second floor to discuss this. You know, a million people visit the Adirondack Park a year but 36,000 people in Essex County are paying. We are paying this morbid amount for getting rid of our solid waste. What we need is we need this agreement to continue number one, and we need more money than what they are allowing. If you’re in Warren County you can drive your stuff five miles and dump it, how far is it from Minerva to the Franklin County landfill? 120 miles, I think? This is just ridiculous and it’s time; the state they want to protect park? Well, pay for it because right now they are not. So, we have a meeting down there we are going down with Hamilton County they have the same deal there’s was $150,000 a year they are owed $600,000 and the thing is it gets approved in the budget every single year, but they will not release the funds. The only time they release the funds is when we threaten not to take ORDA’s garbage so hopefully we will have good news after the 23^rd but the state is not very good at paying their bills. I’m sure since you’ve been in office you realize that by now, so we’ll see what happens, but you know $300,000 if we were to get our $300,000 that covers one trailer you just approved to purchase a $230,000 trailer it covers one. Yet something has got to change with this and there’s a stipulation that we cannot go in for twenty-five years, why don’t we have a landfill? Why can’t we have a landfill? It’s not the APA saying that there’s no landfills in the Adirondack Park you know that was, you know we were appeased with the $300,000 for twenty years but right now we are up against the wall we need a new agreement or we need a landfill and we’re going down there and Hamilton County is going with us, Mr. Mascarenas and Matt Brassard, JoePete Wilson and we’re going down and see if we can negotiate some kind of a deal but if you happen to read the newspaper or look at the news we’ve heard the Governor she comes out speaking of all the nice things they are doing and spending money well, this seems like a simple, simple they give these organizations all this crazy money, we want our money. If we’re going to truck our garbage out of the park, they should subsidize it and we’ll see after the 23^rd we’ll have a better feel for it but we’re going to go down. We are not going to stop this fight. I’m not sure what it is going to take to get some type of agreement but we’re not going to stop until we have something.

TYLER: I’m not on this committee but I’ve been around here for awhile and it hasn’t been twenty-five years but anyway, lip service is all we get from Albany and it’s very frustrating. Steve, thank you for going down there and doing this but I don’t have my hopes up. There’s no reason to have them up, they are not going to do anything. It’s an election year; Albany is promising millions of dollars for all this different stuff. I want somebody to go down there and tell them, just pay what you owe us number one and number two I found that what gets their ear is articles in the Albany Times Union and things like that about what’s going on. They don’t like that stuff. I think we take an advanced approach on this and start putting more literature out there and getting somebody’s ear down in Albany that will listen to us and put it out to the news what’s going on up here how we are being treated like a dumpster.

STANLEY: I think there’s two ways you can go about this. You can go in with a bat and try and get your money or you can try to get people to work with you and understand that if you want the Adirondacks to be what you want carry it in, carry it out that’s a big motto we have so let’s, we need to get our Assemblymen and our Senators on board with us to bring other State officials up here and be like, you like how it looks up here, you want it stay this way? These are the costs. We need to get supports in Albany to help work with our officials and I think we can go down there and we can carry a club all day and say, pay us what we deserve, do this, do that, let’s put it in the paper let’s trash them because that’s active too but I think I would rather try to go against the people that would want to work with us.

MENSER: I agree with Mr. Tyler we need to make this very public. This is money that they’ve owed us. They have money that they are spending on a lot of other things such as this coming year they spent $1.5 million dollars making five more murals in Ticonderoga if they can spend money on that they should be able to spend money on us.

REUSSER: Benny Nezaj formally of WPTZ is now at Channel 13 in Albany. He likes us.

TYLER: I’m just saying we’ve been doing this Matt’s way for years, approaching it like getting people to work with us, let’s do this, let’s do that and they don’t do anything for us they don’t care about us up here. We’re not votes up here. That’s what counts is votes and it’s time to do something different. We keep on doing the same thing over and over again you’re going to get what you always got. We aint got nothing.

MCNALLY: Don’t misunderstand what our purpose is down there. We’re not going down with a bat. We are not going down with threats. We’re going to start day one putting a proposal together and see where we go. If that doesn’t work, we can change our plan but right now I think in all fairness we have to go down there and lay our cards on the table and hear what our responses are going to be. If it ends up that we have to go to the newspapers and TV that’s fine, but I think I don’t know if you’ve ever seen me carry a bat? Well, I don’t carry a bat very often I’m more of a negotiator and we’re going down there and we are going to do the best we can but to jump out and start a fight with them right now is not the way we want to do it but if we need in six months or three months that’s fine but we’re going down there and it’s not just us we’re going down with Hamilton County and we talked to the Adirondack Council about this you know they want to preserve the Adirondacks and they understand it they actually understand it. JoePete, myself and Rocky, I think they understand it too and they’ve got some juice in Albany so we’re going down. I’ve been to Albany quite a few times now in the last twenty years and we’re going to start, go down there and have a good conversation but we’re not taking a bat with us but I’m not against using a bat at some point if we need to. I think that’s the way things get done. We will let you know how it goes. I’m optimistic.

BARBER: Is there any other questions? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: Number four this would be authorizing a contract amendment with Atlantic Testing Laboratories. This is an amount not to exceed $9,375.00, that is to provide dynamic pile testing for the Moss Road over the North Branch of the Boquet River Bridge. So, another project funded by US Fish & Wildlife at least most of it is and because it’s on the Boquet which is a very sinuous river that’s moving all the time we’re putting in deep foundations. We already purchased H piles that we will be installing so that you’re going to pound those down into bedrock so that river that moves and flooding won’t wash out a typical or undermine a typical shallow concrete foundation. What is dynamic pile testing? Dynamic pile testing is where they put equipment on and has it driven to determine the amount of load that is put on it so we know exactly what the bearing pressure is so we don’t try and drive these too far but yet, we know that by measuring the height we know we’re well below where we think scour could eventually be plus, we know that the soil bearing capacity is proper and the friction capacity of all the soil that’s around it also gives us a certain amount of holding pattern so Atlantic testing is our term contract geotechnical engineering firm that provides that stuff so for any of the new supervisors, we have set rates, hourly rates for all the different categories of people that they have whenever we have a job like this we get an estimate from them using those set rates and then we call a contract amendment and hire so that’s what dynamic pile testing is and that’s what we are doing here. It’s budgeted, US Fish & Wildlife funds to do that.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH ATLANTIC TESTING LABORATORIES, LTD., IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $9,375.00, TO PROVIDE DYNAMIC PILE TESTING FOR THE MOSS ROAD OVER THE NORTH BRANCH OF THE BOQUET RIVER BRIDGE REPLACEMENT PROJECT LOCATED IN THE TOWN OF LEWIS WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM US FISH & WILDLIFE FUNDS. Pierce, Stanley

BARBER: Questions, concerns? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: Number five and number six were both talked about at the facilities committee a couple weeks ago. Number five, now that we’re almost complete with the youth and Ag building recognizing that the former CCE building that the roof is in really poor shape we’ve invested some money in the last couple of years in painting that building I want to repair the roof before it fails and causes real structural issues. The roof is not really that old, it’s close to twenty years old. If you look at it you’ll see that the area underneath the, right below the cupula the shingles look pretty good but the other areas do not so it needs ventilation those shingles that were on it were burnt out from the sun because there was no ventilation before, no insulation in the attic or proper amounts of those things so this is hiring a consultant and ADA Architectural and Engineering Design Associates, to put together plans for a ventilation and insulation and construction roof request for that building. So, it’s in an amount not to exceed $13,750 for that and that’s coming out of regular budgeted funds.

THURSTON: I just have a question Jim; this seems like a lot of money for an engineer design for a roof and I understand that it is quite large. Is this taking into consideration changes in the shape and structure of the roof?

DOUGAN: No, this is really just coming up with ways that we’re going to be able to, most of the money is in adding really a ventilation system to it because it never had one, that building is, it’s not a typical building the shape of it so it’s got a lot of what are called hip roofs okay? In a hip roof and some of those are even tied into the side of the building so you have no place even if you can get air underneath it if it’s tied into the side of the building, you can’t just put a way for that to get out of the building. If it’s a hip roof you can’t put gable vents in so the ventilation of this and why I think they never did it before is a little complicated so most of this is about designing that ventilation system. If I was only replacing the roof I wouldn’t bring an architect in I can do some standard details to meet the manufactures standards and we do that in house but when I want somebody to give me a ventilation system that his going to move the air out of that so this next group of shingles we put on last 30-35-40 years.

THURSTON: Okay, so just so that I am clear, you’re talking about some type of duct work involved?

DOUGAN: Hopefully not. No, I don’t want a mechanical system if I don’t have to put it in. Why spend that energy. Why do that. I’m hoping that we can use vented sofit, ridge vent and other things but I am concerned that we might need some mechanical ventilation to get to those bad areas where it’s really hard to get in.

THURSTON: Thank you for the clarification.

DOUGAN: It was a good question.

BARBER: Any other questions, concerns? All in favor, opposed – carried.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH ARCHITECTURAL AND ENGINEERING DESIGN ASSOCIATES, P.C. IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED $13,750.00, FOR PROFESSIONAL ARCHITECTURAL SERVICES INCLUDING FINAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTURAL DRAWINGS FOR ROOF REPLACEMENT AND ATTIC/ROOF VENTILATION FOR THE FORMER CCE BUILDING LOCATED AT THE ESSEX COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS WITH FUNDS TO COME FROM BUDGETED FUNDS. Stanley, Pierce

DOUGAN: My last one I also brought up at the facilities committee. A few years ago we set up a capital reserve account for buildings and we had the discussion as we do budgeting that certain things should remain in your annual budget and certain projects should be outside of that and so because they are kind of one time hits so we had in order to keep the actual county budget for 2026, a little bit lower what we are asking people to pay in their tax levy we pulled some of these projects that we thought were one time projects and we pulled them out of that capital reserve. So, I’m looking to move $317,900, from the capital reserve for these specific projects that during the budget process we said we’re going to come out of capital reserve instead of budget. I would take up most of your meeting to go through all of those if you want or leave the last few minutes for Alice and Doreen.

MASCARENAS: Yeah so, I think the most important thing is balance prior to transfer is $3.9 million in the capital reserve account, balance after transfer will be $3.6 million. We are also working, probably by the end of next month beginning of April we’ll have some of our 2025 numbers finalized as we’re trying to tie that up. One thing that we will consider and we’ll see what the recommendation is it will certainly be brought to the board if we do is projects where we didn’t spend amounts we may want to consider putting that back into the capital reserve fund so right now it’s kind of one of those juggle games where we are trying to balance that account and make sure that we keep revenue going but just to give you a heads up on how we want to fund those things going forward once we close out those projects and accounts we will be bringing that but this is exactly the kind of thing that we want to set up the capital reserve for it allows us to plan for those one time expenditures that don’t have to hit your budget on an annual basis funding it long term is another thing that we’ll talk about later this year.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING A BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE DPW – BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS INCREASING REVENUES AND APPROPRIATIONS IN THE AMOUNT OF $317,900.00, CAPITAL RESERVE ACCOUNT FOR COUNTY BUILDINGS PROJECTS. Stanley, Menser

BARBER: Questions?

STANLEY: So it’s not really a question it’s more I really like the structure of this resolution and it’s a great example for how we at the towns can be using our capital reserves as well and why it’s important because I think there’s a lot of things that you may say in a few years and we are lucky to be setting these accounts up quite a bit of money so we could do these but long term it’s a great way to be able to like Jim said, plan for these one time repairs laid out however we are going to use them any bit of money that we can put back in will be great for future things so great example for the new supervisors, this is a great way to utilize your capital reserves if you have them set up or if you don’t, it’s a great way to start.

BARBER: Any other questions?

THURSTON: Public referendum for building a capital reserve not necessary for this project?

MASCARENAS: No not for county.

THURSTON: Oh, not for county?

MASCARENAS: Towns have to go to public referendum to even establish capital reserve funds county does not. You have a little bit of a wrinkle in county verses town law.

THURSTON: Okay, thank you.

BARBER: Good question. Good to know. Is there any other questions? All in favor, opposed – carried.

DOUGAN: That’s all I had for resolutions. Quite a few of our annual bids for highway related things like asphalt, gravel, sand some of those things are out right now so by the time I see you at committee meeting next month I’ll give you an idea on some of that. I had warned you that asphalt might be going up because of the recent change to prevailing wage rate but just wanted you to know that.

For Tim, next week I’ve got Geotechnical engineers are going to be out on Route 10, starting to do the investigation on those two bridges for you and for Matt, the plans for those two bridges are with the state now for final review we should have that in the next 15-25 days and that will trigger us to be able to go out to bid and for Rick, I should have plans on Old Military Road the schematic ones next week and we can share those and then we can have that task force get back together on that road site it’s just quick updates.

REUSSER: Just real quick, Mr. Pierce and I would like to thank Jim and his crew for heating up the transfer station buildings for the employees that served those functions on those very cold days.

PIERCE: It is still a work in progress; we need to improve the system that is there.

DOUGAN: I’m glad that worked.

THURSTON: I have two things for Jim, a few weeks ago I sent Jim and Steve an email about going out to RFP for testing for PFOA’s for all the towns because it is so expensive. I did get a glimmer of good news it looks like the department of health will actually be taking over the PFOA testing for the towns they got some kind of grant money for the state for that so cross your fingers that goes through.

DOUGAN: Just water?

THURSTON: Just water is what I’m hearing. So that is a great thing for all of us, but I also wanted to bring up something that I had emailed Jim about a couple of weeks ago and as probably most of you are aware, the Governor has EV school bus mandate. It is supposed to begin 2027, where in 2027, every single school bus that is purchased in New York State is supposed to be an EV school bus electric vehicle. I’ve done a lot of research into this and what I’ve found is that the weight of the EV buses is much greater than a diesel bus. I emailed Jim saying, what are all of our bridges and culverts the weight requirements for that? I think that we need to take a really good look at that. For me, that also involves Essex County and Clinton County for our school district I think it’s a concern for all of us here if EV buses are mandated and we don’t have the infrastructure to support them so that is something that I really feel we should move forward with doing a study internally I’m not suggesting to go out and spend a lot of money but the internet has been incredibly unhelpful with telling me what the weight requirements are for all the bridges in Essex and Franklin County.

DOUGAN: It’s a complicated formula because it really comes down to the way the weight is distributed on the vehicle itself, the number of vehicles the square inches on the tire all those things all factor into that so, 99% of all vehicles when they get registered are within the same weight limit that we are required to design to. It’s only when really heavy loads are moved right that you put in there’s a process even when some of that happens in Essex County where I look at the planned route that somebody is delivering something really heavy is going and then I have to look at each structure individually based upon the number of axles the number of tires, it’s complicated. What I can tell you is I can give this group a list of our roughly 142 bridges which ones are posted right now and what posted means is they have a set weight limit on them not a I don’t want to call it a unlimited weight limit I want to call it per normal registration weight limit. Any bridge that’s not posted is if that vehicle is registered and it is registered in New York or Federally so that the weight limits, those pounds per square inch do not exceed standard FHWA and DOT rates then it crosses our bridges no problem it’s only those ones that are posted the one red flag that I would give you is once I give you that list, it could change tomorrow if DOT comes in and says, because they do new inspections on our bridges if they come in and say, oh something has changed, mother nature has deteriorated this bridge somebody has a boat underneath has hit one of the beams on it at that moment in time, I can get told by DOT we’ve got to do a new assessment and the bridge rating is going to change so, if I give you the information okay, it’s a guide but don’t send it to others because pretty soon you’ve got a lawsuit on your hands and the wrong size vehicle crosses it because something could have changed. It’s only the signing on the bridge, the posting on the bridge which is when one comes down that’s why we have to hurry up – if I hear a sign like that went down on the weekend it’s as important as a stop sign getting hit and getting replaced.

THURSTON: One of the bigger concerns for me, I mean most bridges are built to handle this but I think the Moose Pond Bridge because we know there’s kids across that bridge and it’s a wooden slat bridge, we replaced the slats on that but more importantly is the culverts so I think about those little dirty roads, where we know we have culverts, we know that they can’t take a bigger weight and I just think about how expansive our area is how rural it is and some of the little roads that these school buses are going to be going down and how detrimental that can be.

DOUGAN: Absolutely it all plays in a mandate like that and at the same time that they aren’t projecting increases in CHIPS funds, at the same time they aren’t projecting any increases in CHIPS funds to cover that additional prevailing wage rate that they just mandated, it’s another topic to say, you’re pushing that cost to us the locals and most of those roads like you said here in Essex County more than a lot of places they’re designed based on a low volume road. Almost every road we have, even our most busy roads are still considered a low volume as compared to other roads across the state so the design manual for that from DOT is a different standard than say other routings set but when they push a mandate for electric buses, they don’t think about it. That’s why a few years ago we said, no to move all the Empire State biking trails onto our roads because it didn’t meet the standards that they say, our roads didn’t meet the standards, and we said we don’t want the liability of that. Sorry, I got long winded there.

THURSTON: Thank you.

BARBER: Is there anything else for Jim?

DOUGAN: I knew you guys wanted to listen to me for a long time today. Have a good day.

BARBER: Alice, Soil & Water.

HALLORAN: Good morning. So, we are hiring interns I’m not sure if I told you last time but let people know. We usually hire two or three so it’s a great experience for them, they learn tons of stuff and help us get a lot of the work done.

Megan and I went down to Albany for our annual New York Association of Conservation District stay just to meet with legislators, let them know what we do, keep us on their radar so that was great and we got to meet Assemblyman Cashman so that was good.

And I put down some upcoming dates our standard educational events coming up in the spring that we’re planning for and then on the back I just did give you a snapshot of our current grants that we’re holding now and just remind you that the top groups so all those agricultural funding sources Ag round point source and the climate resilient farming and then the AEM program that we talk about all the time, those are funding sources that can only come through the conservation district nobody else can apply for those that’s why you’ll see us focus on those a lot. We are the only ones that can bring that money to Essex County so that’s just a snapshot of some of the things that we have going on.

BARBER: Any questions?

PIERCE: For the interns what are the qualifications?

HALLORAN: Driver’s license. We’ve never hired anyone under the age of 16 so I think they need to be at least that old well, I guess that’s a driver’s license.

PIERCE: Nothing else?

HALLORAN: No, it’s really a learning experience.

PIERCE: Okay, thank you.

BARBER: Is there anything else?

HALLORAN: Thank you.

BARBER: Doreen, Transportation.

ABRAHAMSEN: Good morning, everybody. I do have one resolution do you want me to do that first?

BARBER: Yes.

ABRAHAMSEN: And that is to go out to RFP for the engineering and design for the phase1 of our new facility and the construction of it.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASING AGENT TO GO OUT TO RFP FOR THE ENGINEERING AND DESIGN FOR PHASE 1 OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF A TRANSPORTATION FACILITY. Stanley, Pierce

BARBER: Questions, concerns?

THURSTON: Have you identified the location for it yet?

ABRAHAMSEN: Westport at the fairgrounds.

MASCARENAS: We set up a committee, a small committee that is going to report to us by June. We started conversations with the Ag society they will be represented on that committee as well as members of the community in Westport, Mr. Tyler is on that committee as well and what we are really looking at is the potential for relocation of the current campground on that site. We are hoping that we can find a feasible outcome to have that at the fairgrounds if we cannot we will likely have to begin this process over in terms of location and grant applications and just so everybody knows this is about an $8 million dollar project that we’re looking at funding from DOT. So, we are starting those conversations the group knows their task and hopefully by the beginning of summer we will have a report on items that this board needs to know in terms of making a decision whether we are going to move forward or pump the brakes.

THURSTON: Thank you.

BARBER: Is there anything else? All in favor, opposed – carried.

ABRAHAMSEN: And just a couple things on my report, Mike you had asked for a three year comparison and the last page I provided that and I just wanted to point out normally when I give you monthly stats it’s by route but for the comparison I did it by Lake Placid which is the Express, Whiteface which is our ski shuttles and carries a large part of our STOA and then the Essex County which is all of our eastern/southern eastern routes and Mike, you were concerned or wanted this due to tourism and tax and you’ll notice that Whiteface consistently has gone up and I think that shows more that people are still visiting more so than the Lake Placid Express has lowered at different times but that is really utilized more locally.

MASCARENAS: No, I appreciate this. It’s absolutely an indicator of what we’re experiencing in terms of and kind of further validates what we’re seeing in terms of occupancy and that increase to the tax so no, I really appreciate seeing those prior years. Thank you.

BARBER: Any other questions for Doreen? Thank you. Is there anything else to come before the committee? We’re adjourned.

As there was no further discussion to come before this DPW committee it was adjourned at 10:10 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Judith Garrison, Clerk

Board of Supervisors